On Jun 11, 2021, at 11:57 AM, Richard Saunders <rsaun58043@...> wrote:

Interesting, thanks for passing Roy.  Great stuff to think about.  I certainly believe achieving light speed or thereabouts is possible.  The problem I see, however, even at the relatively low speed of orbital velocity, i.e., ~17,000 mph, is that sooner or later a small piece of space dust, rocks, debris or whatever, will strike the spacecraft and either seriously damage or destroy it.  It doesn't have to be big to transfer destructive energy to the craft as per Einstein's E=MC².  We don't have material that could stand the impact and likely never will.  To survive space travel at high speeds a spacecraft would have to have some type of force field and that's something I think is not likely to be developed.  
Regards,
Scott

v/r

Chuck Jagow

Treasurer - Back Bay Amateur Astronomers

Rott'n Paws Observatory

    N36:46:23.281 W076:13:31.512

My view from Ocean View :)

Not freezing like 2013!!!!

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From: BackBayAstro@groups.io <BackBayAstro@groups.io> on behalf of jimcoble2000 via groups.io <jimcoble2000@...>
Sent: Thursday, June 10, 2021, 07:18
To: BBAA-Group; Lawrence W. Taylor III; VPAS; kentblackwell; Roy Diffrient; Ted Forte; Kurt.Melow@...; dandd4bb@...
Subject: [BackBayAstro] One for the books. The most dramatic partial eclipse I have seen.

Magnificent is about the sum of it. Weather was making things dodgy but there were breaks in the clouds at 0430 when I got up. I had packed the car the previous night with the 20x80 big binoculars and my Baader solar filters.

After a 45 minute drive down to the boat ramp in Back Bay I arrived as the sky was getting lighter. Huge changes have taken place and spell the doom of the houses back there and eventually the boat ramp. Water is no a permanent feature on the roads and yards due to sea level rise. There has been no winds the past days so this was not a wind tide event it is the new normal. It has been 25 years since I have lived down there and the change is remarkable as the situation becomes more untenable.

After parking I set up my chair and binocular tripod by 0630. There were gaps in the clouds though there was a solid cloud line at the horizon. This was changing slowly so it was a race between the sun and the gaps. It was a spectacular sunrise as the gap got more and more orange and intense with the rising sun. The cloud tops were vermilion in color. The only thing I can compare it to is the classic sunrise in the desert scene from the movie Lawrence of Arabia. It was that good. David Lean would have tears in his eyes.

I started watching the gap a split second before the sun cleared the clouds, I was rewarded with my first ever view of the green flash. As the sun rose it looked like a rhino horn with the moon covering more of the face than i thought it would. As this was at low altitude I could see the reflection of the water waves off back bay, the dark outline in Sandbridge, wisps of clouds and that astounding sight of thew eclipsed moon rising as if through a wide screen frame of a Cinerama movie. The gap was wide enough to see the entire sun as it rose into the next thin layer of clouds. Then the sun repeated the jaw dropping show through the next layer before slowly disappearing into the solid clouds above. All this took 15 minutes but what a 15 minutes! Cue the sound track to Lawrence.

The circumstance conspired to make this so beautiful and memorable with the setting and the effect of cloud water, land, and eclipse against a dead black background sky. I am not sure film could capture the scene. Only 15 minutes but one for the books. It is always worth going to on the chance the magic may happen.

Seeing the eclipse this morning was great but participating in an outreach event with other members was even better. The first two photos of the eclipse are ones that Leigh Anne took.